


Where The Heart Is

by Egleriel



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-01
Updated: 2018-07-01
Packaged: 2019-04-17 01:22:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 5
Words: 4,741
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14177526
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Egleriel/pseuds/Egleriel
Summary: When Sansa dies in childbirth at the most inopportune moment possible, Arya is left holding the baby. Arya can't help pondering the question of nature vs nurture.





	1. Battleborn

Of all the mysterious and troubling elements of her niece’s birth, Arya knew the one that preoccupied her was by far the most trivial. It was an annoyance was born of frustration, of the knowledge that even had she arrived sooner, she could have done no more. It was an annoyance born of the fact that no matter how far Arya had come, there were still some events on which she could have no influence. Mayhap that held true for both of them that day. Both Stark girls had survived to see the battle for the dawn, and no doubt Sansa had come through it all with as many scars and as many lessons as Arya had. Still, it was so infuriatingly typical of the Sansa of their childhood that she’d named the babe as she did.

 

Four namedays had passed between the day Arya last saw her sister, sobbing on the steps of Baelor’s sept, and the day they were reunited in Winterfell. Arya had been furious that Jon dismissed her from the battlements with an order to _find our sister_ ; she’d cursed Sansa’s cowardice and arrogance with every step through the deserted castle, searching for an estranged sister who’d been thoughtless enough – selfish enough – to desert the walls during their last stand.

 

On that, at least, Arya could admit she’d misjudged Sansa. The lady of Winterfell hadn’t fled to hide. In the midst of battle, she’d slipped away to her old quarters without a word, and there – without maester or midwife or a hand to hold – she’d borne the child no-one knew she was carrying. It was a personal kind of bravery, but bravery nonetheless.

 

* * *

 

 

There were no tears or shrieks or rent skirts over her own death. Arya watched a weak smile stretch Sansa’s face when she entered the room, the barest flicker of acknowledgement before her gaze returned to her tiny daughter. Sansa breathed, “Her name is Sandra,” and never spoke again.

 

 _Sandra_. It said everything of what Sansa expected of her daughter: that she be as similar to Sansa as possible, only not _quite_ as pretty.

 

Most were surprised that Sansa did not name her ‘Catelyn’. Somehow, Arya doubted that their mother would have considered it an honour to have her daughter’s bastard named for her. Sansa, who had known their mother’s mind far better than Arya, must have surmised the same.  Perfect pretty Sansa, the model daughter, who bore the first grandchild on the wrong side of the blanket.

 

* * *

 

In the moons that followed, there were some who called the child _Sandra Battleborn_. The wildlings whispered that that name was ill-omened, but in time all grew used to it. It gave Arya perverse satisfaction to think of Sansa’s daughter raised a spearwife. Sansa would have _hated_ that. Oh, they’d call for a septa, too, when the girl was old enough, but Arya would not see Sandra raised to be a perfect docile hostage, like her mother. Arya loved her far too well for that.

 

She was determined that Sandra should learn to be a lady, learn the accomplishments that had come so naturally to her flame-haired forebears, but also know how to swing a blade and nock an arrow. If any man sought to dishonour Sandra, he ought to have a fight on his hands.

 

That was the greatest question of all: who had fathered Sandra? Arya would never forget those first few hours of holding her niece, pacing the crypts of Winterfell while Rickon slept fitfully beneath their father’s memorial. The cries of battle were entirely out of hearing, but the earth around them trembled and boomed ominously. Every shock could be the giant-held ram that brought the gate down, or the crash of the last dragon into the wreckage of their cause. Through it all, Arya stared at the babe in her arms, trying to discern some feature in her little face that was neither Stark nor Tully.

 

By the time Jon burst into the chamber, hours later, Arya was no wiser, but the joy at their victory was made twice as sweet by the knowledge that she would get see Rickon and their niece grow up.


	2. Snow

Arya was five-and-ten when she helped Sandra take her first steps. It felt curious to her that Sansa had only been a few moons older when Sandra was conceived. Had she invited some silver-tongued lordling into her bed? Was she forced? Did she fancy herself like aunt Lyanna, surrendering to some forbidden passion and scorning the consequences? A flowered Sansa might have thought the idea romantic.

 

Yet she hadn’t fled with her mysterious lover. Jon’s questioning of the servants – once the victory was celebrated and Winterfell repaired – yielded no suggestion of a change in Sansa’s behaviour.  The story was like an old jigsaw puzzle with too many missing pieces. Sansa’s maids reported that they’d dressed and undressed her morning and night until a fortnight after Jon’s army left for the Wall.

 

“Didn’t you think that was a strange request?” asked Jon quietly.

 

“No, m’lord,” said the maid. “Half the Winter Town went north with the army – all the ablebodied men and a good number of the ablebodied women, too. Winterfell was a little short of staff, truth be told. Lady Stark called it wasteful, having two maids pin her hair every day when there were more important jobs that wanted doing. She was thin as I’d ever seen her the last time I dressed her, m’lord. She wasn’t with child. I’d swear on my own life.”

 

And yet, the maester declared Sandra a full ten-moon baby, which meant Sansa must have been four moons along by the time she eschewed her maids’ services. If Sansa heard news of the father’s death, she neither rejoiced nor mourned in any way that earned notice. It was hard to credit the idea that he might have been a man at Winterfell, for a raper would have been punished and a liaison would have been spotted. Sansa’s mood at all times had seemed in keeping with what was expected of her.

 

Arya trawled through the commanders’ logs for all the soldiers near Winterfell who died, deserted or were executed in the five moons before Sandra’s conception. She checked the steward’s logs for any reference to a time when Sansa might have been vulnerable. The closest she could find was a moon before the army’s departure, when Sansa travelled with her sworn shield to collect the final shipment of supplies – and men – from White Harbor. If Lady Brienne knew aught of an affair then, she had taken its details to her funeral pyre.

 

* * *

 

 

In time, Sandra Battleborn’s eyes darkened from infant blue to take on a steelier tint. If Sansa’s eyes had been the blue of a deep lake, Sandra’s were the blue-grey of a storm-tossed sea; the colour of the Braavosi lagoon in winter, where Sansa’s had looked like Blackwater Bay at midsummer. _Midway between Sansa’s and mine_ , Arya sometimes reflected.

Her niece’s temperament, as time went on, seemed to find a similar balance. She had Sansa's poise in the solar and the great hall, but her wolf blood ran true in the training yard with a wooden sword and astride her pony. Whoever Sandra’s father was, he’d left little enough of himself in the girl, from what Arya could see. At times, Arya thanked the gods for that in case he’d been a raper after all; at others, she pitied the man, wherever he was, for leaving no legacy at all.

Arya cursed the day she'd been caught with Sansa's diary. It seemed that morning's humiliation in girlhood had been enough to put Sansa off diary-writing for life, and Arya found was the poorer for it. She tried to imagine what sort of man could lure Sansa into such an egregious indiscretion. She pictured a knight with a fair face and courtly manners wooing her in the godswood or at court. In time, Arya abandoned the idea that he might have dishonoured Sansa - not when Sandra seemed to exist as a creature who brought perfect love wherever she went.

Except, of course, when the opposite was asked of her: the stripes of bruising on Arya's arms and thighs could attest to that. But the rest of the time, yes, a creature of song and beauty with an innocence that was as precious to Arya as her own life.

 

* * *

 

Sandra Snow was revelling in her first summer when Gendry came back. If not for the ragged facial scar he’d earned trying to defend the Wall, Arya would have thought him the shade of Renly Baratheon. He belonged to that house by law as well as blood now, legitimised by Jon and Daenerys as they tried to restore orderly succession to the great houses of Westeros. He rode into Winterfell in black armour, wearing the dancing stag of Baratheon on a golden tabard. He brought no retinue, nor even a squire. Just his writ of legitimisation and a heartfelt request for Arya’s hand.

 

“You _have_ to accept him, Aunt Arya,” said Sandra softly, with all the earnest certainty of a girl with five whole namedays. “He is a true knight. I can tell.”

 

“How can you tell?” laughed Arya, though her heart twisted and stomach churned every time she brought the subject to mind. “Is it just because he’s handsome?”

 

Sandra set aside her needlework in a manner eerily similar to her mother, fixing Arya with the exasperated look that she’d seen so very often on Catelyn Stark’s face.

 

“Ser Gendry rode all the way from Storm’s End to Winterfell to ask for your hand. He _might_ have sent a raven. I think he just wanted to see you, whether you choose to marry him or not.”

 

Adjusting the dressing over her forearm, a souvenir from yesterday’s practice with the bow, Sandra smirked quietly, “And _you_ think he’s _handsome_.”


	3. Interlude

"Seven hells, Arya, trust  _you_ to pick a time like this to stop wearing your heart on your sleeve," sighed Gendry. He sounded worse than angry: he sounded disappointed.

"That's not fair," Arya retorted. 

"True, though." 

"I..." 

The seconds stretched on and on, and still the words refused to come. A jumble of  _feelings_ swirled in Arya's head: friendship and hope and worry and fear, attachment to her family pitted against shy desire. Where could she start? Where did it all finish?

Gendry's expression softened. He stepped closer, wrapping his hands around her forearms as gently as he could, but Arya couldn't bring herself to meet his eyes. She was too afraid of what she might see there. He bent forward and kissed her forehead.

"Arry. Just... talk to me, won't you? Gods, Arya, I want to know what's going on in that mad head of yours. Always have, somehow. I've loved you since we were children."

Her head snapped up at that. "Since I was a child, you mean," she said curtly.

Gendry swayed back a little. "Does... does that bother you?"

In all honesty, Arya wasn't sure how to feel about it. "I don't know. I don't really understand it."

"I didn't really understand it myself." He looked uneasy. "I didn't care for you in the way I do now,  _obviously._ " 

"You mean you didn't want to bed me."

"No!" he laughed. "I didn't want to bed you. But I  _liked_ you. There was something about you that got into my head and stayed there, through the war and everything since it."

His hands slid up to her shoulders and Arya had to suppress a shiver of delight. "I think I know what you're saying."

"All right. Maybe I didn't love you back then, not exactly anyway. I knew you were important to me. I knew that if we _both_ were older..." 

"Florian and Jonquil, all that nonsense," said Arya airily.

"Fuck off," he laughed.

"Nah," she said fondly, "Winding you up is far more fun."

Trembling a little, Arya let her hands fall on his waist. She hadn't been this close to a man since Braavos, and even then, none of her marks had been men she truly cared for. It had all been steps in a dance, and now she felt like she was dancing on a tightrope. She took a deep breath. It was now or never.

"Gendry, I've been struggling with this because don't want to leave Winterfell." The light in his eyes diminished before she could continue. "But I don't want to tell you 'no', either, because I  _would_ like to marry you."

* * *

Rickon was troubled by the news, afraid to see his last sister go south to her ruin like Father, Mother, and Robb. The question was thorny, for Lord Edric and his Dornish bride had yet to produce an heir to Storm's End. Until that time, Gendry's place was most properly in the Stormlands, though Edric and Elia would have been quite content for him to never darken their door again. Luckily for all concerned, King Jon had never been able to say 'no' to his foster-sister. Gendry was granted leave to stay at Winterfell, on condition that he returned to his keep in the south once Rickon came of age.

Stoic Rickon would manage without her, she knew. Rickon had never known the security of family like the rest of the Starks. He'd been too young when they went South, too young when the war came. It bred an impatience in him that no maester had managed to reason out of the boy. One day, it would get House Stark into real trouble - and now, it seemed, Arya might not be around to help him when that day came. 

Little Sandra was a different story. She brimmed over with excitement at Arya's news, firstly effervescing with questions about the wedding, and soon after pestering Arya with ideas for when she went south. 

"We won't go south until Rickon's regency is over," she snapped one afternoon, after one too many rounds of, 'Yes, but Aunt Ar- _ya_...'  

A shadow fell over the girl and her mouth set into hard line, her lips so tightly pursed that one corner set to twitching.  "I'm only trying to  _help_ ," she muttered.

"We'll all see three more namedays before I set off. There is plenty of time for you to help - but it doesn't have to be right now."

Sandra stamped her foot with a grunt and stormed outside. Arya cocked her head and watched her niece go, suddenly recognising the dress the girl was wearing. It was an old one of Sansa's, one she'd been given for some nameday or other. Arya had filled the pockets with frogspawn, and in return Sansa had poured honey into Arya's featherbed. For moons afterwards, just the sight of that dress put Arya in mind of ant-bites. How old had she been? Seven? That would have made Sansa nine. Strangely, it fit Sandra well enough at five-and-a-half. 

Then Arya thought of her own parents, and of how Gendry would have towered over them both.  _How tall will our children be?_ she wondered with a thrill.  _Will they have my look or Gendry's?_

Beyond the open door, she watched the bouncing auburn braid disappearing into the godswood. _One thing is for certain: they'll have a hell of a temper._


	4. Snowflake

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If anyone's still reading, I'm so sorry for the delay! Writer's block is a bitch.

The snowy dress and crown of blue roses, the cloak of black and gold flowing from her shoulders, the handsome lordly bridegroom. This was every girl's dream of womanhood; it had certainly once been Sansa's. Never Arya's, though. Young Arya had not understood how terrifying violence and intrigue really were. As a girl, she'd heard 'danger' and thought it just different kind of excitement. The war, and Braavos, had left her yearning for the happiness she'd known in safe, quiet Winterfell. Sandra had been a major factor, of course.  _I had to become more conventional than I felt_. Arya glanced at her niece. Sandra, still wearing her summer flowers, was begging an Iron Islander to show her the finger-dance. She supposed it still wasn't an entirely conventional life.

Next to her at the high table, seated in the place of honour, Jon placed a hand over hers. "She softened you," he said gently, a note of pride in his voice.

 _Sandra could soften the very stones of Winterfell if she put her mind to it,_ thought Arya. "Yes." 

"I think Sandra will do well in the south when the time comes. Even now, she has Sansa's tastes and your spirit."

"That's what worries me."

* * *

On his six-and-tenth nameday, Rickon, Lord Stark, swore fealty to King Jon and was named Warden of the North. Arya had spent moons and moons tracing the Kingsroad down the map, lost in memory. Her heart always stuttered when she touched the Trident. Stupid as it sounded, the river boded ill in her mind. Arya had known nothing but death and loss on the banks of the Trident: Mycah and Nymeria, Mother and Robb - even the Hound, whom she'd blamed for all of those losses, had died there.

The night of Rickon's nameday, she shared her feelings with Gendry in the hopes he might be able to reason her out of it. He didn't even try. Arya was hurt and annoyed by his indifference, and was about to make her frustration known when Gendry plopped down next to her at breakfast and curtly said, "I've booked us passage from White Harbor to Storm's End."

When the feasting was over and the wagons loaded, Arya Baratheon set off south with the royal convoy for the second time in her life. Even the journey to White Harbor would take more than a moon, but once there they could take a few days' rest while Jon bestowed some former Bolton lands on Lord Wylis. Lady Wynafred, the heir to White Harbor, received the king graciously at the city gates and led his escort to the Merman's Court. As usual, Arya and Gendry held back from the scramble at the front of the procession, and before long Gendry fell into conversation with one of the garrison sergeants that rode alongside them.

It was all polite chatter - the sort that always sounded so natural in Gendry's mouth. When he asked about the pace of trade in the city, he understood how a spike in Pentoshi cogs would affect the seamstress class that might wed the local men-at-arms. Gendry had a tendency brooded on matters; he liked to fit all of what he learned into a single, bigger picture. The sergeant, however, was less interested in their small talk. He kept sliding curious looks at Sandra, but clearly hadn't the balls to ask if she was the rumoured bastard of Winterfell.

"Has my ward upset you in some way, sergeant?" Arya snapped at at last.

"No, m'lady," he said, startled. "She just set me to thinking about the last time m'lord of Manderly feasted a Stark at White Harbor."

Arya's silence was wintry.

"Hello, ser!" Sandra chirped into the gap. "I'm Sandra Snowflake. I've never been so far south before!"

"Is that right, my dear? You're the loveliest snowflake I've seen all spring." Sandra beamed at the praise. "It's hard to credit how much things have changed since the winter. Even the commander - the most chivalrous chap you'd meet for a moon - was like a different man back then. When Lady Sansa visited, he came into the mess and said, 'There's a bloody Stark a-coming. I need mounted escorts, night guards, and chambers prepared for the Lady Regent and for her shield.' He told us her ladyship was the easier charge, too, for her shield was a fearsome brute." 

"That _fearsome brute_ helped my brother save the realm from the Long Night," said Arya, annoyed. She'd only spent a few short hours with Brienne of Tarth, atop the walls during the battle, but it had been long enough for the warrior maid to earn Arya's undying respect. Arya'd seen her fall.

So this uppity watchman had spotted the resemblance between Sansa and Sandra. It didn't take a damned greenseer to match the pretty faces and auburn locks. Still, beyond the walls of Winterfell, it wasn't common knowledge that Lady Sansa had borne a bastard in the midst of battle.

"Ah, begging your pardon, m'lady. I meant no disrespect. A warrior like that is held in high regard in White Harbor, though I suppose you couldn't take that for granted away from these parts. Best commander my eldest boy had during the war, or so I hear."

"Did he live?" Gendry asked softly. "Your eldest?"

"Most of him! Marlon was lamed in the woods around the Dreadfort, but he made a friend of his maester and got himself a job in the ravenry after the war. He was proud to serve, of course. Hand-picked for the unit, too - a stablehand like him," said the sergeant proudly. "We all thought Lady Stark would be travelling with the Beauty, not the Beast. He was impressed with how my Marlon handled his courser, and when the call came for riders for the Hound's unit, he asked for Marlon by name." 

The Hound? The Hound fought in the last battle? The Hound guarded Sansa? How could something like that have happened without her learning about it? Surely it was-

"Arry?" It took Gendry's gentle nudge to break Arya's reverie. She shook her head. 

"Forgive me, sergeant," she croaked. "I travelled with the Hound for a time when I was young. I thought he died at the start of winter." 

'No, my lady," the old man gushed. "The rumour went that he’d been wounded down in the south and vanished for a time, but he swore his sword to House Stark surely enough. He fell with honour, too. My Marlon lost his leg, but he made friends with a lad from the ravenry " 

Arya’s heart broke a little for Sandor Clegane. He’d lived. She’d left him to die, and instead he’d suffered through. She'd left him to an even crueller fate than intended. What would he have said to her if their paths crossed? She wondered what he told Sansa about their travels through the Riverlands - if he'd told Sansa anything at all. It didn't make him out to be a conventional hero, that tale.

 "What else can you tell me?" 

"Not much. My boy would be honoured to tell you his tale, if m'lady willed it. He did say something about the Hound leaving a message for Lady Stark. If you knew him well, maybe he meant it for you. I... Our Marlon asked me to take it with me today, in case I met anyone who knew him. Begging your pardon, m'lady, m'lord, I thought the chances of that were slimmer'n a sparrow's purse, but as it happens..."

 

Arya passed her hand over the battered paper. The ink might once have been black, but it had faded patchily to an anaemic sort of cloudy grey. The thin, sure hand remained legible, though: the Hound had addressed his note to ' _Wolf-girl (care of: Lady Stark)_ '.

Her heart stuttered. "Yes," she heard herself say, disoriented. "I think it _is_ for me. I was… I suppose I was a bit like a daughter to him." 

And as simply as that, the penny dropped. 

 

The Hound had been one of Sansa’s sworn shields.

" _The little bird, your pretty sister,"_ the big man wept by the Trident.

A trip to White Harbor with only one escort.

And then, of course, most obviously of all - the little girl's name.

 

Arya clutched the paper so hard that a brittle edge flaked off. Startled, Arya tucked it away in a pocket in her sleeve for safekeeping. Her mind whirled. How in seven hells was she going to make it through this feast? 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter is going to be... short.


	5. Little Bird

Unfolded by candlelight many hours later, the letter was miraculously intact. The handwriting was dense, but legible: all save the salutation, which might have begun with an L, but the rest of the ink had smeared across the page beyond all recognition.

 

_ The last time I tried to collect my thoughts on the eve of battle, you almost fell off the tower where I came to drink. I suppose you realise now that I was glad of your company, despite the circumstances. Despite my words. If there was a tower to be found out here, I would be climbing it just to check. Your face would be a welcome sight. _

_ Jon has me leading a flying column to mop up any cold ones we see in Bolton territory. He knows I can't stand to be near the queen's beasts, but he sees that I can still be useful. I'm grateful to you for that, even if you'll say you had nothing to do with it. It makes no matter if you said anything or if you just paraded me in front of him without needing to chirp at all, because I want to be useful. _

_I don't expect you to understand it, but it's a different kind of anxiety from that night on the Red Keep. Time was, I'd have evening jitters because I was impatient for the fray. I told you killing is the sweetest thing there is. I'm open to the possibility that there are better things in life, but fighting is still what I was made for. Death didn't hold any dread for me. Now, though, I might have something to go back to, even if I've fucked things up too badly to be forgiven. Either way, I'm not fighting for glory or pride, I'm fighting to save something that matters a great deal to me. Even if you despise me - and I can't fault you if you do - you might be able to talk some sense into me tonight. _

_ Ever since White Harbor, I've lost all notion of what sense is. I have no regrets about it, save how I behaved when we returned. I'm sorry for that. I don't know what you thought of me or what you thought was going through my head. I'm big enough and ugly enough to admit I didn't handle it well. We needed to leave some distance between us, like you said, but courtly decorum has never been a strength of mine as you know all too well. I got the balance all wrong. Pushed you away even when there was no-one but us to see it. I'm sorry for giving you the wrong impression. I'm sorry I couldn't give you the support you needed. It's tormented me since we left: what I could have done differently. _

_ If I return in one piece, I want to put things right. Might be you'll have me banished. It's not as though there's much I can offer you to make amends. You've had my sword and my loyalty for a long long time, but I'll say the words too if you want them. I'll say any words you want, anything that can convince you that my life is yours to do with as you wish.  _

_ For now, the best way I can serve you is to try and turn back the tide. I hope I'll see you on the morrow. If I don't, then know at least that I died thinking of you. _

 

* * *

 

 

The Baratheon standard flapped from a ship that caught the evening tide in White Harbor. Above it, a raven flew from the New Castle, bound for a septry near the port of Maidenpool.

When, much later, they docked in Shipbreaker Bay, Arya gaped at the scale of everything. The cliffs around the bay loomed like the Wall; even larger still were the massive bastions of Storm's End and its colossal Drum Tower beyond. She guessed there was more than a drop of Baratheon blood in some of the dockers, judging from their breadth and colouring. Never a tall woman, Arya clutched her niece's hand and tried not to be overwhelmed by their new life. She felt Gendry squeeze her shoulder reassuringly.

As they made their way down the pier towards dry land, Arya's elbow was jogged by passengers disembarking another ship. She turned to scowl at the nuisance, glancing round to see a walking stick and yards and yards of dun-and-brown robe; far above her, it culminated in the deep hood of a holy brother, who seemingly took no notice of Lady Stark at all. Instead, he was looking squarely in Sandra's direction.

 


End file.
